Memory of Melancholy

Casually, I allow my cat to nuzzle her head against my hand, demanding affection. She leaves her fur behind, it falling out in tufts now due to her failing immune system. Her eyes are still bright when she searches my face. “Do you love me?” they ask. All I can do is smile and stroke her cheek. Only one side at a time. Just the way she likes it.

Her body is thin now. When I first got her two years ago she was severely overweight, but diet and exercise brought her to a healthy range. And then she began losing interest in her food. Hiding more. Drinking more water. And the pounds flew off with her fur. The diagnosis was a common one for older cats: hyperthyroidism. I started her on medication, twice daily. And it worked. For nearly six months. Her fur grew back. She came out from underneath the chairs. She started eating again and drinking a normal amount of water. But last month, I noticed her sleeping more. She wouldn’t come greet me at the door. She’d done every day since she came home with me. And then the water started to dry up. And the fur started to come out again. The medication was no longer working. The next option was surgery, unfeasible due to my budget and her decompensation.

On Tuesday, her life will cease to exist. And I will be left only with her collar and memories.

I knew the risks in adopting a senior cat. I knew my time with her was limited. And right now I would not consider getting another senior cat. The grief is too unbridled, too raw. But having witnessed multiple sets of euthanasia, both as a vet tech and as a friend, that came days or weeks or months too late, I allow the anguish to flood my eyes and clench my heart. I will not ask her to suffer so I can avoid my own. Not now. Not when it matters.

I cannot stop the tears. I do not want to. For to fully feel the depth of this sorrow is to mean I am alive. This is life. The clenching of fists, screaming into pillows to stifle the sound, the seizing of my lungs and heart as I attempt to expel every brittle shard of anger, the slimy grip of guilt. This is the price.

Eventually, this grief too shall pass and fade into the memory of melancholy.

Thoughts of a Dying Anybody

It’s been a year.

The government shut down (again), thousands of children have been discovered to be still held in internment camps, Donald Trump is still president, Israel and Palestine are still fighting, and police in America are still killing unarmed non-white citizens. Starbucks still serves coffee, politicians are still trash and a source of comedy gold, and Chick-fil-a still doesn’t have any beef options. So maybe not that much has changed.

And yet.

A year ago, I could recognize myself when I looked in the mirror. It wasn’t always someone I liked, but at least I knew them. The hair, down if it was a relaxed day and in a ponytail if it was time to work. The eyes fit in the face, warm but still calculating. Hands, placed deliberately on top of the counter, not gripping it until the knuckles pale. I haven’t seen that person in a while now. I haven’t been that person in a while now. I wouldn’t even know the first place to look to get that person back. All I know is I don’t fit in this body anymore.

But then again, this is not my body. It never was.

Perhaps once upon a time I had the luxury of claiming my physical space as my own. No longer. Possessions can and will be taken away. Behavior can and will be controlled. The physical realm, including the flesh in which I reside, is tangible and therefore removable. Therefore under control of another master. The only thing I am allowed to own are my thoughts. And that is only if I keep them secret. Keep them safe.

Two men can keep a secret if one man is dead.

I am dying. Slowly, literally, figuratively, quickly. The organs which compose my flesh prison are failing. The natural process of aging and artificial intoxication is wearing them down. If I continue at this rate they will be gone. I am told that once they are gone, they are gone forever. Not like the whiskey damage and cigarette smoke and the scar tissue slowly closing my intestines. Those linger. Not like the memories of losing my autonomy and identity pushing me to chase rye amber. Those stay. Not like thoughts. Those are forever. My thoughts are infecting them. They are still my only possessions. Control is a behavior rooted in a thought; when did I lose it? There is a tangible answer to when my sobriety evaporated and the world went up in alcohol-induced flames. But when did I lose that thought? I have so few possessions left – how could I lose one? Why did I let this one slip away? Why did I lose control?

As I turn myself over to the doctors, I wonder whether they hold sacred the things I do, and if I will be required to finally give up everything. And if not, what else I stand to lose.

A Year Marked by Loss

2016 was a year marked by loss.

From acquaintances, friends, friends close enough to be considered family, coworkers, and fellow fighters in education, this was a year where my personal resolve was tested beyond belief. Accidents, medical fatalities, suicides, overdoses – all results were the same. I went to more funerals that year than I have in the past 25 years combined. And I won’t even comment on the laundry list of celebrities that passed away in 2016. (Here’s a full list. Still miss you Alan Rickman).

However, not all loss equates to death.

By voting in Donald Trump, the United States also lost a piece of its identity. The hope and change Obama promised, only reaching certain areas and skipping over large swaths of land, gave part of the country eight years for the seeds of despair to plant, flourish, and reproduce in gargantuan masses. Fellow Americans, we did this. We all elected Trump. By not fighting hard enough for the justice we believe should flourish. By refusing to acknowledge the truth that some were being ignored. In a fit of seemingly masochistic hate, we all voted in this regime whether or not we cast a vote for the current administration. I truthfully did not believe our country was capable of this kind of sabotage, so tell me my fellow Americans who did vote for him, who are we now? We are no longer the land of the free and home of the brave when we’re controlled by fear. We’ve lost our identity.

But then again, change always follows loss.

Whether we like it or not, our national identity is shifting from from one of meager tolerance of diversity to a far more critical and fear-based populace. I, too, harbor more fear than I used to. But my fear is shifting, morphing quietly in the transitional chaos to something else.

Fear leads to hate. Hate leads to anger. And anger leads to suffering.

I cannot in good conscience call for a ceasefire. Trump has wronged too many people, too many of my friends and family, for me to feasibly do so. They are angry, and they deserve to be. Threatening to erode one’s quality or quantity of life is nothing to be taken lightly. But I can ask for understanding. For those who did vote for him, understand the ideological basis against voting for him. Understand their fears, their passions, their anger at you for voting for him. And for those who did not cast a ballot for him, understand the economic and social ramifications of the past eight years that would  cause 60 million people to vote the way they did. Their fear had already morphed to hatred and anger, but at the core it is still fear. Fear of the inability to protect their own family. Fear of their loss of life. And to the international community, please excuse the US for the next four years. We’re going through a period of transition and have no idea what the fuck is happening.

But remember my fellow Americans, we will all die if we succumb to protecting our own. What allows us to survive is the ability to resist change, but what allows us to flourish is embracing it.

May 2017 be marked by compassion. The world is going to need a whole lot of it.

It’s Not Over Yet, Thankfully

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Halloween with its ghoulish cheer and haunted happiness is a close second, but nothing comes close to the warmth and love I touch on Thanksgiving. And not all of that is because I’m always filled with stuffing.

The first time I celebrated the holiday without my family I was in Texas, living on a farm in the middle of nowhere. I knew relatively little about the women I was living with. I didn’t care to know them. Not because they were bad people – I simply didn’t have the energy to emotionally invest myself into forming new friends. And yet, come Thanksgiving, we all gathered, cooked, baked, and slaved over a four course buffet fit for royalty. It was the first time I had ever tasted green bean casserole. I baked an apple pie that was devoured within the first ten minutes. To this day, I can feel the contentment and calm that followed our feast.

The second time, I was in a small town nestled in the mountains of Idaho surrounded by chaos. There was no turkey, no love, no calm, and too many tears. This was the first month post-trauma: I was a whirling dervish of destruction.

This year might become the third Thanksgiving where I am not with family. But unlike times prior, it will be because of my choice alone. I have learned how to cook all of our favorite foods, right down to the perfect turkey, and can successfully do so in my tiny one-person kitchen. Food is no longer a strong enough draw to lure me from my home. Neither is company, for I live with and among friends in my apartment complex and the tense bickering of family can hardly compare with comfortable laughter. The pull away this time is due to a furry new arrival.

About a month ago, I adopted a cat from one of the many shelters around the city. Peregrin Took, or Perri, has quickly become a core influence on not only my constant thoughts but my unconscious behavior. Soft as a chinchilla with lengthy talons to match, she shines a light on personal barriers I thought I had hidden long ago. She hates being picked up or held but loves to be comforted, as do I. She despises the vacuum, as do I. She is a cautious yet curious problem-solver, as am I. She loves cautiously, as do I. However, those whom she deems worthy gain her eternal affection. Even now as I type she is sleeping next to me. Her constant presence has calmed much of the anxiety, washed away much of the sadness, that has built because of this tumultuous year.

Her nightly purring has allowed my mind to settle at night so I can sleep decently, something I had long ago resigned to never happening again. This is even confirmed by my Fitbit, which has shown that I get about 45 more minutes of sleep than I did prior to her adoption. It may not seem like anything worth celebrating, but when I routinely got less than five hours of sleep, those peaceful extra minutes have been welcomed without question. I could not be more grateful to or for her.

Like most animals, I have a feeling she knows what I have seen, felt, heard, touched. The places that have seen me. The people. The things that I have brushed against and in turn been touched by. And yet she does not care.

In this season of gratitude, I am particularly thankful for Perri.

 

The Re-Education of Their America

I vividly remember the first time someone found out I wasn’t straight.

Some LBGTQ people choose to have coming out parties, celebrating their strength among close friends. Others make announcements, either in person or on social media. Still yet others only tell individual people in the dark of night for fear of retribution from their family, city, country. I did none of those. My banishment from the proverbial closet was forceful, yet accidental.

And yet, during that night three years ago, only one-third of me came out.

There are three parts of my identity, three pieces of the puzzle that fit together yet remain individual. Gender, sexuality, and romantic identity are commonly correlated, but they are not synonyms. For those that do not understand the separation of the three, I forward The Genderbread Person and a highly recommended article about the difference between sexual and romantic attraction.

I am agender, meaning I do not feel to be either male or female. I am neutral, neither. I am asexual, meaning I have no internal drive to have sex. I am not actively against it – I feel the same way about sex as I do about tables. I am biromantic, meaning I am romantically attracted to both men and women. When I was 22, I first discovered the term “asexuality” after a therapist suggested I research it. I had known since I was 16 that I was attracted to men and sometimes women, and for an equal amount of time I dismissed my gender identity due to growing up a tomboy.

During my accidental coming-out at 23, a small group of friends and I were watching TV when we decided to watch Netflix instead. My computer was the only one that was able to be connected to the monitor, so we pulled out the cords, opened up a window, and hooked up my laptop. Prominently displayed on the TV were then my most frequently visited pages: Facebook, my university’s homepage, Google, Twitter, Netflix, and AVEN. AVEN, with its emboldened purple, grey, black, and white triangle and large lettering proclaiming it to be the Asexuality Visibility and Education Network, instantly and accidentally kicked 1/3 of me out of the closet. My friends were curious at first, but on the whole I was roundly supported. After years of hiding my identity, one part was no longer a secret.

I do not have good reason for hiding the other two. Despite their many flaws, my family is largely supportive of all LBGTQ people and even offered to support me financially when I went to Toronto for a Pride conference. My friends are lovely, many of them flying the rainbow flag themselves. I proudly live in a city that is one of the world’s safest places for LBGTQ people. Jews are well known for welcoming minorities as are Vincentian Catholics. Other than my own mild fear of rejection and much larger apathy, there is little reason to hide.

But now, maybe there is.

As the world learned Wednesday morning, Donald Trump is the president-elect of the US. Gov. Mike Pence, his pick for Vice President, has roundly championed a list of anti-LBGT laws during his terms as both Representative and Governor of Indiana. Notable ones include his support of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, belief that being gay is a choice and indicates the societal collapse of marriage, support for religious discrimination in the workplace, and measures to severely reduce funding to organizations that assist LBGTQ people, like homeless shelters and mental health funding. Most importantly, he believes that conversion therapy is a legitimate and effective treatment for being gay.

While I now live in a state that has banned conversion therapy, at one point I lived in both Texas and Idaho, states that have no such protections. Minors can, and are, exposed to forcible starvation, physical restraints, and electroshock therapy at the discretion of their parents for not being straight. And at what cost? Those who go through the process are six times more likely to have major depression, three times more likely to use drugs, and eight times more likely to attempt suicide or succeed.

Mike Pence has made his record on LBGT rights clear. So let me do the same.

Though not under the guise of converting my sexual identity, I have been forcibly starved, physically restrained, and denied medical service in the name of “therapy”. Over a period of six weeks, I lost 40 lbs., got an infection in my arm, and began hallucinating. Although my addiction to pills did not truly bloom until nearly a year later, I began trying to manipulate the psychiatrist into giving me more prescriptions with the hopes that I could either blur my time awake or simply sleep the day away. My already present depression skyrocketed to a point where I tried to end my life by eating copious amounts of toothpaste, the most lethal substance to which I was allowed constant access in a heavily-restricted location. One of the other patients in the facility molested and sexually harassed every single female-bodied person present. Unfortunately, we were some level of bisexual or biromantic and so staff all turned a blind eye.

What I went through was torture.

I will not permit anyone else to experience the same.

To me, Vice President-elect Mike Pence is more than a champion of anti-LBGT policy. He is a decimation to the community in which I call home, a force of utter destruction to the people I call my friends. He routinely advocates the torture of youth for being precisely who they are, and expects me, as an educator, to allow him to do so.

I will not let him use my classroom to amplify his voice.

So Mike Pence, I would like to let you know that I will not shy away from complete and total LBGT inclusion. I will promote textbooks and stories that honor the struggle my brothers and sisters have gone through at the hands of others like you. I will make sure all my students understand that under no circumstance will I tolerate any exclusion of LBGT students, no matter how mild. No matter what policies you throw in my way, my classroom and I will always remain a safe haven.

I will not be silenced to continue the mis-education of your America.